<p>My son, a rising sophomore, is very interested in starting a club, but I’ve heard from some teachers and counselors that “starting small” will prove better in the long run. This means that instead of promoting himself to president immediately, he should start with secretary and work his way up. Is it true that colleges look for this upward trend?</p>
<p>However, I’m worried that he won’t make the officer again the following year and that might itself look worse than having varying leadership positions. Should he perhaps limit the club to only his peers in order to guarantee his steady advancement?</p>
<p>Knowing barrons through his posting history, I don’t think he was joking. He referred to the fact that a job, even a burger-flipping job, looks much more favorable to college adcoms than HS club activities.</p>
<p>I would agree with barrons. Something is sick about trying to improve admissions by engineering a club officer position. I also suspect a fast food job would be more valuable.</p>
<p>I don’t think it matters what your position is called- if he has an idea that isn’t duplicated already in the school and there is strong interest and he has a teacher advisor- I say go for it.</p>
<p>My daughter really wanted to have a marine biology trip to the Galapagos Islands. She had an advisor and they had meetings and strong student interest, however, that is a long way to go and they had almost but not quite enough interest to finance the trip for that year. She was a senior, but if she had started earlier, I daresay she would have had better luck.</p>
<p>Still the experience is what is important and she learned a lot about her own leadership capabilities and interest in travel.</p>
<p>What sort of club does your son have in mind?</p>
<p>I co-founded a club with two other friends in high school and it was an extremely valuable experience. I was a junior by that time, though, with significant experience in the logistics of running a club. </p>
<p>I second emeraldkity4 in saying that the important thing is whether or not the club will actually make a lasting impact. The club I co-founded was definitely needed… we had 5 college counselors for 2,500 students in our academically excelling but resource strapped public high school, people were falling through the cracks. So, we made a club that paired upperclassmen mentors with incoming freshmen to help guide them through the high school process. Four years later, the concept of upperclassmen mentors is still running strong.</p>
<p>In terms of college applications… it doesn’t matter what the title was, as long as the impact was real and the role was substantive. Some of the best leadership roles I’ve taken have been when I was just a regular member who stepped up to build a team in order to address a need in the organization, and I express this through the specific details I can write of/talk about in essays/interviews about leadership.</p>
<p>Edit: I would NOT start a club with just friends. Start a club with people who are strong leaders, who you trust, who are team-players, who have discipline, drive, and determination. Those criteria, and friends, are not equivalent. In fact, if you want a club that is long-lasting, and that will represent a diversity of opinions, you HAVE to recruit widely. Having a professional team together to run a club is also much more conducive to actually getting things done than having friends who think it’s a cool idea, but think they can get away with not being held accountable (a very real concern).</p>
<p>My son was thinking about either starting a Math Club or an Engineering Club. However, in terms of actually making a lasting impact, I’m not sure whether either or them would accomplish something on that level… He just wants a place where people who are interested in the same things he is can discuss topics of the sort.</p>
<p>Ronnicus, a math club could find out if there are other math teams to compete with, help a middle school MathCounts Team, organize AMC contests if the school doesn’t offer them, and offer tutoring. Just hanging around to talk about math… less interesting.</p>
<p>An engineer type might enjoy doing the engineering activities at a Science Olympiad, but getting a Science Olympiad club going is a lot of work.</p>
<p>The idea of starting a club and limiting it to just a select group of people to promote your own advancement is a very manipulative and offensive idea to me. As is the idea of “promoting yourself to president”.</p>
<p>It is okay to start a club if your son is really interested in a topic, but all comers should be invited and welcome. And, if other clubs are run that way at the school, he could suggest that they model after those clubs and have officer elections. With nominations and all that. Maybe he could suggest that at the first meeting (where they could brainstorm about what the club should be about), and they could hold the election at the second meeting; that gives everyone a chance to think about it and decide if they want to run. And he can even nominate himself for president. If he did all the organizing (got a room, advertised the meeting, found a faculty adviser, has good ideas for things the club could do), they may very well elect him as president. </p>
<p>As long as he is willing to do the work AND is elected by a freely invited group, then this seems like a really good idea. A girl at D’s school started an environmental club, and I’m sure that EC helped her get into Cornell.</p>
<p>Also, relatively few colleges consider use ECs for admission factors. The colleges that do are the most competitive in the country and have admissions officers who are graduates of the college, and can tell the difference between students who started clubs to pad their resumes and students who really accomplished things in their clubs – whether or not the students were club officers.</p>
<p>I also notice that the OP acts like a parent here, but acts like a student on other threads. It’s fine for students to post on the parent boards as themselves.</p>
<p>I also would not start this sort of club with looking good to colleges in mind. He should do it because he’ll enjoy it and the whole concept of colleges wanting to see him work his way up is just silly. Did teachers really tell him that? In the real world, founders lead.</p>
<p>Anyway, do note that small clubs that don’t accomplish something outside of the school don’t mean much to colleges. This notion kids here have that being pres of the school ping pong club racks up points, again, is silly.</p>
<p>Truth through humor; BB is correct. I’d rather see a kid who worked and got some increasing responsibility than one who spends an hour a week on some dubious “club” activity.</p>